Chapter 2: War Comes to Midway

On the morning of 7 December, Midway's patrol planes were out early and on schedule.
Five of VP-21's PBYs were droning along prescribed routine searches, and two more
patrol bombers, enroute for ultimate delivery to the Netherlands East Indies, had
taken off for Wake at first light. On the Sand Island seaplane ramp, two PBYs warmed
up to rendezvous with and guide in the expected Marine dive-bombing squadron,
VMSB-231.[1]

At 0630 (0900 Pearl Harbor time), a Navy radio operator's "Z"-signal from Oahu broke
through to Midway with an inkling of the disaster at Pearl Harbor; a few minutes later,
just as the Army Signal Corps detachment was receiving the same word from Hickam
Field, an official despatch from the Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District, confirmed
the news and directed that current war plans be placed in effect.

After recalling the Dutch PBYs (which were forthwith commandeered for VP-21) and
establishing additional patrol sectors for the remaining aircraft, the Island Commander
at 0918 directed that the 6th Defense Battalion--which had at 0900 already acted in
anticipation of such orders--go to general quarters.

The remainder of the day was spent in much the same type of activity as was frantically
going ahead on other outlying United States Islands: preparations for blackout, issue
of additional ammunition, digging of foxholes, and check of communications.
All lights and navigational aids were extinguished.

By nightfall, with defenses still manned, Midway--which now was not to receive
VMSB-231, due to the Lexington's diversion to an attempt to locate the Japanese Pearl Harbor striking force--was buttoned up, and all search planes had returned with negative reports.

At 1842, however, just after evening twilight, a Marine lookout observed a flashing
light some distance to the southwest of Sand Island. Although this soon disappeared,
it was, undoubtedly, a visual signal among the Japanese ships of the Midway
Neutralization Unit. Although lights were not again seen, the one operational radar
on Sand Island began picking up what seemed to be surface targets southwest of Sand
Island about 2130. At almost the same time, observers in two searchlight positions,
which were equipped with powerful 8X56 night glasses, reported "shapes" to seaward
in the same area as the radar contacts just mentioned. The commanding officer of the
searchlight battery (Battery G, First Lieutenant Alfred L. Booth) immediately
requested permission to illuminate, but this was refused on the ground that it might
disclose our positions prematurely. Further, at this time it was erroneously believed
that friendly ships were in the vicinity, and this doubt had resulted in issuance of
strict orders against any firing or illumination except on specific orders from the
battalion commander.[2]

page 12

JAPANESE DESTROYER, USHIO, which shelled Midway on the night of 7 December 1941, rides at her last anchorage, after the end of the war. Of all the enemy vessels
which participated in the Pearl Harbor attack, this lone destroyer was the only one
afloat on VJ-day.

Akebono and Ushio, the two enemy destroyers whose mission was to
bombard Midway, made their landfall about 2130, having left the tanker, Shiriya,
at a rendezvous some 15 miles to southwestward. Within a few minutes they were
on station southwest of Sand Island for the first firing run, and their twin 5-inch
mounts were already trained toward Midway.

At 2135, the first salvo cracked out, and war had come to Midway.

During the first part of his run, Captain Konishi's shells landed short: just between
Sand Island's west beach and the reef. Then, as the Japanese destroyers steamed
slowly northeastward, closing the range somewhat, the salvos walked onto target,
first hitting near Battery A, the 5-inch seacoast unit at the south end of Sand Island,
and then bracketing the Sand Island power plant, a reinforced-concrete structure also
in use as a command post by one platoon of Battery H (.50-caliber antiaircraft machine-gun).

At this juncture, not having yet received return fire, and seemingly not having inflicted
damage, Captain Konishi ceased firing while his ships closed the range and took station
for a second run.

Ashore, meanwhile, Condition One had been immediately resumed by the defense
battalion, and the telephone lines leading to and from Colonel Shannon's headquarters
were jammed with excited reports.

Although the Japanese commander did not realize it, his initial shelling had put a
round through an air port into the reinforced concrete

page 13

power plant just mentioned. This station was manned by First Lieutenant George.
Cannon and three enlisted assistants, all of whom were either wounded or stunned.
Cannon himself was mortally injured; his communication chief, Corporal Harold R.
Hazelwood, sustained a fractured leg; and Platoon Sergeant William A. Barbour had
an ankle smashed. Despite his own wound, a crushed pelvis accompanied by profuse
bleeding, Cannon remained conscious and refused evacuation, directing re-establishment
of communications and the evacuation of others from the structure, the interior of
which had been scarred and raked by blast and fragments. Finally, after Hazelwood,
despite his own wound, had managed to get the damaged switchboard back into
operation, Cannon was removed forcibly from his post, to die a few minutes later at
the battalion aid station.[3]

At 2148, as Konishi's destroyers reopened fire at closer range, Commander Simard
gave Colonel Shannon permission to engage enemy targets as disclosed. The Japanese
ships were now steaming northeast, firing up the long axis of Sand Island. Although
they were being tracked visually by the crews of Lieutenant Booth's searchlights,
the congestion of communications still prevented the latter from gaining permission
to illuminate.[4]

Already, Japanese shells had hit the new Sand Island seaplane hangar, the roof of
which burst into flame while the Marine antiaircraft machine-gunners thereon
concentrated, despite the enemy fire, on lowering their weapons and ammunition to
the ground before the flames could consume them. With the blazing hangar as a beacon,
the Japanese shifted fire to other structures on the island, including the Pan Air radio
beacon, the laundry, and adjacent shops.[5]

1ST LT. GEORGE H. CANON, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic refusal to be evacuated from his post, despite mortal wounds, until his unit's communications had been re-established during the Japanese bombardment of 7 December 1941.

At 2153, orders finally reached the searchlights to illuminate enemy ships. By now,
only Searchlight 2, on the south end of Sand Island, would bear, and this promptly
flashed on, silhouetting the Akebono approximately 2,500 yards south of the
position. A moment later, an enemy salvo fell within a few yards, and concussion knocked
the light's feed mechanism out of position, thus extinguishing the beam. Acting in a
split second, one of the crewmen, trained for just such an emergency, readjusted the
delicate (and red-hot) mechanism in the dark, and the light was back in action and
on target.[6]

A few minutes earlier, just at the instant when word was being passed to commence
firing, an enemy shell hit and burst within 18 inches of the plotting room on the 5-inch
battery (A) on the south end of Sand Island, and severed all telephone lines of the
battery's interior and exterior communications. This was particularly unfortunate
since Battery A was the unit under whose guns the enemy destroyers were about to
be illuminated, and the loss of interior communication prevented firing data or any
fire commands from reaching the guns themselves.[7]

page 14

Only one battery could now bear effectively. This was a 3-inch antiaircraft unit (Battery
D, Captain Jean H. Buckner) on the southeast shore of Sand Island, from which Buckner
could even discern the large Japanese battle-flag flying from the Akebono's foremast.

As soon as the enemy target had been illuminated, Buckner ordered his battery into
action, taking care, however, to direct gun captains to make sure that their fire would
not endanger adjacent sections. Each gun captain checked his line of fire, and then,
in Buckner's words,

Sergeant Lefert on Gun 2 loaded his gun but upon checking for safety * * * discovered
that it was pointed directly at the pit occupied by Gunnery Sergeant Pulliman and me.
He informed Pulliman of this fact over the gun control phone and wisely held his fire. * * *

Battery D's other guns, however, commenced firing as Buckner and his fire controlmen
prepared to spot when the splashes appeared. none could be made out, however,
despite the excellent illumination, which seemed to indicate that the shells were
either passing through the superstructure or into the hull.

At 2158, five minutes after Searchlight 2 had struck arc, just as it appeared to observers
that Handley's opening salvos had hulled the Ushio, now visible astern of
Akebono, the Japanese succeeded in shooting out the searchlight. Smoke
appeared to be "pouring" from Ushio, and the enemy ships ceased fire, retiring
to he southwest into their own smoke.[8]

What damage had actually been sustained by the Japanese ships remains a moot question.
Battery D had fired 13 rounds of 3-inch, and

SAND ISLAND SEAPLANE HANGAR, A TWO-TIME LOSER under the enemy attacks of 7 December 1941 and 4 June 1942, smouldering as a result of its status as the most conspicuous target on Sand Island.

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COL. HAROLD D. SHANNON, sernior Marine officer at Midway during the battle, and commanding officer of the 6th Defense Battalion during the atoll's most critical period.

Battery B, nine rounds of 5-inch. Enemy records and logs are neither fully available
nor specific with regard to this engagement. Midway observers agree that the 3-inch
battery secured at least three hits, yet it is equally certain that both ships returned
to Japan under their own power as planned.[9] Some
light, however, is shed upon this question by the report of Capt. J.H. Hamilton, pilot
of the Pan American aircraft, Philippine Clipper, which was in flight at this
time from Wake to Midway.

The Philippine Clipper, flying at 10,000 feet in bright moonlight, saw below it
an intense fire on the surface of the sea, by the light of which could also be discerned
the wakes of two ships, apparently cruisers.[10] Their
position was 35 miles west by south of Midway, and their apparent course was 240º
magnetic, reported Hamilton. It seems at least probably that these were Akebono
and Ushio, and, if so, that one of them was then on fire, which would indicate that
the Marine batteries had left their mark upon the enemy.[11]

On Midway, meanwhile, all action centered on damage control, care for the casualties,
and a not altogether successful attempt to send out PBYs to locate and attack the hostile
force, a project further confused by a profusion of dubious radar reports which came in
throughout the night. Several buildings had been hit or partially destroyed, and a
considerable quantity of Navy stores lost, mainly incident to the burning of the hangar.

In casualties, the raid had cost the 6th Defense Battalion two killed and 10 wounded,
while the Naval Air station had lost two killed.[12]

Footnotes

[1]
These and subsequent details as to the day of 7 December on Midway are taken from
War Diary, NAS, Midway, for that date, hereinafter cited as NAS Diary.

[3]
Letter from Col. Lewis A. Hohn to CMC, 30 January 1948, hereinafter cited as Hohn.
For this devotion to duty, Lieutenant Cannon was posthumously awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor, being the first Marine to be so honored in World War II. Corporal Hazelwood
received the Navy Cross.

[10]
In common with the defenders of Wake, Midway's men, unfamiliar with enemy vessels,
mistook destroyers for cruisers. Further, in the confusion of the initial attack, Colonel
Shannon believed that the enemy force had probably totaled four ships instead of two,
as was actually the case. In this connection, Colonel Hohn comments:

"It is perhaps understandable why the report was made of four enemy ships made a
firing run heading in general in a northerly direction, after which there was silence and
darkness for some minutes; then two ships started a firing run from a position much
further south. It was discussed and realized at the time by a number of people * * * that
it was probably that the same two ships had made both runs, but it is seldom that
conservatism wins out in reports of action against the enemy."